Religion Today

Judaism class offered

Rabbi Dena Feingold will offer a 10-week Introduction to Judaism class from 9:45 to 11:15 a.m. Sundays beginning Dec. 7 at Beth Hillel Temple, 6050 Eighth Ave., Kenosha.

This class is ideal for conversion candidates, interfaith couples, non-Jewish parents raising Jewish children, grandparents who have Jewish grandchildren and spiritual seekers, in addition to anyone who wants to brush up on the basics of the Jewish holidays, life-cycle observances, beliefs, customs and traditions.

There is a $50 tuition fee along with a required book purchase. Register for the class by contacting the temple office at 262-654-2716 or register at http://www.bethhillel.net by Dec. 1.

Exploring generosity, gratitude at devotional

Generosity and expressions of gratitude greatly strengthen our spiritual lives. The Bahais of Racine explore how this is so at the monthly interfaith devotional and spiritual discussion at 2 p.m. today, in the home of Barry and Loralee Uhlenhake, 3223 Wright Ave. People of all faiths or none in particular are invited to participate and share their own prayers and insights on this theme and on any other topic they wish. Refreshments and social time will follow.

For more information or directions, call 262-672-5269.

Holy Communion welcomes associate pastor

The Rev. Laura Fladten will be installed as associate pastor during a service of celebration and joy at 9:30 a.m. Sunday, Nov. 23, at Holy Communion Lutheran Church, 2000 W. Sixth St.

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Religion Today

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A Brief History of Evolutionary Spiritualityby Tom Huston

Has creation a final goal? And if so, why was it not reached at once? Why was the consummation not realized from the beginning? To these questions there is but one answer: Because God isLife, and not merely Being.

F.W.J. Schelling, 1809

Charles Darwin did not invent the concept of evolution. In fact, he himself acknowledged that the idea, however loosely defined, had a history dating back to Aristotle. And despite the general impression offered by most scientists today, it wasnt always a materialistic notion either. In its modern incarnation, the concept of evolution can be traced directly to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, who viewed the evolutionary process as an act of God.

A renowned German philosopher, scientist, lawyer, linguist, mathematician, and inventor of both calculus (independent of Newton) and the binary system (the basis of computer technology), Leibniz was a man ahead of his time. Writing on The Ultimate Origin of Things in the year 1697six years after speculating in hisProtogaeathat over the vast course of the earths history even the species of animals have many times been transformedhe stated that a cumulative increase of the beauty and universal perfection of the works of God, a perpetual and unrestrictedprogressof the universe as a whole must be recognized, such that it advances to a higher state of development. Although the idea that Gods creation was evolving in a ceaseless ascent toward perfection had already been profoundly intuited over seventy years earlier by the German mystic Jakob Bhme, it was Leibniz who first placed it in a scientific context. And to him, clearly, it was still a novel concept. I flatter myself that I have some ideas of these truths, he wrote to a friend in 1707, but this age is not prepared to receive them.

Over the next few decades, an increasing number of Europes brightest minds began to finally catch Leibnizs evolutionary drift. Among those illumined ranks were names such as Diderot, Maupertuis, Buffon, and Voltaire, who all wrote about the topic of evolution but, like any self-respecting champions of the Age of Enlightenment, rarely felt compelled to inject divinity into their more scientific speculations. Indeed, by upholding the liberating power of rationality to subvert the ancient myths and dogma of the Church, many of them actively sought to draw a firm line between science and spirituality, reason and religion, bringing to sharper contrast the divide that began with Galileos confrontation with the religious authorities two centuries earlier. In this context, through much of the eighteenth century, the many musings about the idea of evolution frequently took on a strictly naturalistic or materialistic tone.

It was only around 1799, ten years after the storming of the Bastille, which ignited the French Revolution and cemented the success of the rational Enlightenment in the chronicles of the Western mind, that these varied intimations of evolution finally congealed into a cohesive new model of reality. Arising, once again, from the fertile depths of the German zeitgeist, it was a cosmological and metaphysical paradigm that seamlessly united science and spiritualityan evolutionary vision that stretched from the simplest atoms of the distant past to a sacred future in which human society would perfectly reflect the transcendent unity of the Divine.

On any given evening during the fall and winter of 1799, in the pastoral college town of Jena, Germany, at least one candlelit home could likely be found abuzz with the excited voices of some remarkable men and women. Meeting over fine food and wine in the home of local literary critic Wilhelm Schlegel and his brilliant wife, Caroline, an eclectic band of young artists, intellectuals, and self-styled scientists would symphilosophize and sympoetize late into the night, absorbed in a seemingly endless swirl of radically unconventional ideas. They called themselves Romantics: revolutionaries of the human spirit determined to infuse the Enlightenments increasing trend toward dry materialism with some much-needed passion and poetry. Troubled by the rational minds tendency to brusquely reduce the full grandeur and beauty of life to stale scientific abstractiondissecting nature atomistically like a dead corpse, in the words of one of their early proponentsthey strove to steer Western society in a more holistic, spiritual direction. And perhaps no individual better fulfilled that dream than the youngest member of Jenas Romantic inner circlethe charming twenty-four-year-old wunderkind and idealist philosopher Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling.

Go here to read the rest:
Evolutionary Influences: A Brief History of Evolutionary ...

October 31, 2014

As we watch the fighters of the Islamic State (Isis) rampaging through the Middle East, tearing apart the modern nation-states of Syria and Iraq created by departing European colonialists, it may be difficult to believe we are living in the 21st century.

The sight of throngs of terrified refugees and the savage and indiscriminate violence is all too reminiscent of barbarian tribes sweeping away the Roman empire, or the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan cutting a swath through China, Anatolia, Russia and eastern Europe, devastating entire cities and massacring their inhabitants.

Only the wearily familiar pictures of bombs falling yet again on Middle Eastern cities and towns this time dropped by the United States and a few Arab allies and the gloomy predictions that this may become another Vietnam, remind us that this is indeed a very modern war.

The ferocious cruelty of these jihadist fighters, quoting the Quran as they behead their hapless victims, raises another distinctly modern concern: the connection between religion and violence.The atrocities of Isis would seem to prove that Sam Harris, one of the loudest voices of the New Atheism, was right to claim that most Muslims are utterly deranged by their religious faith, and to conclude that religion itself produces a perverse solidarity that we must find some way to undercut.

Many will agree with Richard Dawkins, who wrote in The God Delusion that only religious faith is a strong enough force to motivate such utter madness in otherwise sane and decent people. Even those who find these statements too extreme may still believe, instinctively, that there is a violent essence inherent in religion, which inevitably radicalises any conflict because once combatants are convinced that God is on their side, compromise becomes impossible and cruelty knows no bounds.

Despite the valiant attempts by Barack Obama and David Cameron to insist that the lawless violence of Isis has nothing to do with Islam, many will disagree. They may also feel exasperated. In the west, we learned from bitter experience that the fanatical bigotry which religion seems always to unleash can only be contained by the creation of a liberal state that separates politics and religion.

Never again, we believed, would these intolerant passions be allowed to intrude on political life. But why, oh why, have Muslims found it impossible to arrive at this logical solution to their current problems? Why do they cling with perverse obstinacy to the obviously bad idea of theocracy? Why, in short, have they been unable to enter the modern world? The answer must surely lie in their primitive and atavistic religion. But perhaps we should ask, instead, how it came about that we in the west developed our view of religion as a purely private pursuit, essentially separate from all other human activities, and especially distinct from politics.

After all, warfare and violence have always been a feature of political life, and yet we alone drew the conclusion that separating the church from the state was a prerequisite for peace. Secularism has become so natural to us that we assume it emerged organically, as a necessary condition of any societys progress into modernity. Yet it was in fact a distinct creation, which arose as a result of a peculiar concatenation of historical circumstances; we may be mistaken to assume that it would evolve in the same fashion in every culture in every part of the world.

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Comment on The Myth of Religious Violence by Isa Manteqi

October 31, 2014

As we watch the fighters of the Islamic State (Isis) rampaging through the Middle East, tearing apart the modern nation-states of Syria and Iraq created by departing European colonialists, it may be difficult to believe we are living in the 21st century.

The sight of throngs of terrified refugees and the savage and indiscriminate violence is all too reminiscent of barbarian tribes sweeping away the Roman empire, or the Mongol hordes of Genghis Khan cutting a swath through China, Anatolia, Russia and eastern Europe, devastating entire cities and massacring their inhabitants.

Only the wearily familiar pictures of bombs falling yet again on Middle Eastern cities and towns this time dropped by the United States and a few Arab allies and the gloomy predictions that this may become another Vietnam, remind us that this is indeed a very modern war.

The ferocious cruelty of these jihadist fighters, quoting the Quran as they behead their hapless victims, raises another distinctly modern concern: the connection between religion and violence.The atrocities of Isis would seem to prove that Sam Harris, one of the loudest voices of the New Atheism, was right to claim that most Muslims are utterly deranged by their religious faith, and to conclude that religion itself produces a perverse solidarity that we must find some way to undercut.

Many will agree with Richard Dawkins, who wrote in The God Delusion that only religious faith is a strong enough force to motivate such utter madness in otherwise sane and decent people. Even those who find these statements too extreme may still believe, instinctively, that there is a violent essence inherent in religion, which inevitably radicalises any conflict because once combatants are convinced that God is on their side, compromise becomes impossible and cruelty knows no bounds.

Despite the valiant attempts by Barack Obama and David Cameron to insist that the lawless violence of Isis has nothing to do with Islam, many will disagree. They may also feel exasperated. In the west, we learned from bitter experience that the fanatical bigotry which religion seems always to unleash can only be contained by the creation of a liberal state that separates politics and religion.

Never again, we believed, would these intolerant passions be allowed to intrude on political life. But why, oh why, have Muslims found it impossible to arrive at this logical solution to their current problems? Why do they cling with perverse obstinacy to the obviously bad idea of theocracy? Why, in short, have they been unable to enter the modern world? The answer must surely lie in their primitive and atavistic religion. But perhaps we should ask, instead, how it came about that we in the west developed our view of religion as a purely private pursuit, essentially separate from all other human activities, and especially distinct from politics.

After all, warfare and violence have always been a feature of political life, and yet we alone drew the conclusion that separating the church from the state was a prerequisite for peace. Secularism has become so natural to us that we assume it emerged organically, as a necessary condition of any societys progress into modernity. Yet it was in fact a distinct creation, which arose as a result of a peculiar concatenation of historical circumstances; we may be mistaken to assume that it would evolve in the same fashion in every culture in every part of the world.

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Comment on The Myth of Religious Violence by dinobeano

Western medicine historically has had a very biological approach in how doctors and nurses treated their patients, whereas the field of psychology had evolved from studying the mental and biological phenomenon of the human mind. These fields remained separate specializations of study in Western and European cultures, yet they had coexisted together in Native American, Latino, and Asia cultures for centuries. Descartes theory of dualism is slowly being dismissed and now there are some Western medical theories in place that incorporate some mental and biological factors that have been promoted by other cultures in the past (Lovallo, 2004). The first is the Psychosocial Theory.

The Psychosocial Theories of disease and treatment evolved from the biomedical approach which had a linear, cause and effect vision as to how the disease process worked (Lovallo, 2004). The biomedical path stated that disease is caused by a pathogenic stimulus, it leads to a physiological and biomechanical reaction, and then the disease state is achieved. The Psychosocial Theory furthered this definition of disease by incorporating concepts such as understanding that the body could have disease as a result of sociocultural malfunctioning, psychophysiological dysfunctions, or physiological dysfunction alone (Lovallo, 2004). The understanding of psychosocial theories is very important to further how the medical field understands the relationship between social networks and support and recovery or prevention rates. For example, a group of 90 patients with traumatic brain injury were studied to assess if there was a relationship between the level of social support they received and their recovery rate (Kendall, 2003). The study did account for the differences in brain damage severity but concluded that there were improved vocational recovery rates in the patients with higher levels of social support.

Health psychologists refer to the biopsychosocial model as the conceptual basis for their practice, research, and policy making (Suls and Rothman, 2004). This theory looks at health and illness as a combination of a variety of contributing factors such as genetic predisposition, lifestyle factors, family relationships, social support, and behavior. (Lopez and Jones, 2006; Suls and Rothman, 2004). Engel (1968) concluded that prior to the onset of illness the patients had displayed psychological disturbances such as a feeling of being unable to cope with lifes circumstances which resulted in biological changes that may have altered the patients ability to defend off pathogens resulting in the development of disease. George Engel, a medical doctor who some believe is the founder of the biopsychosocial model, identified five contributing psychological characteristics which were a feeling hopeless or helpless, a decrease in positive self-image, loss of gratification with the roles they play in life with others, blending emotions from the past with the present and projecting them on the future, and focusing on and recalling prior memories of when they had wanted to give up. These symptoms became know as the giving-up-given-up complex and became a foundation for the study of the biopsychosocial model and health psychology. People who suffer from these symptoms demonstrated a negative relationship between their biological performances based upon social networks and psychology (Engel, 1968)

The Diathesis-Stress Model is used to help integrate the biological and genetic factors, or nature factors, with the environmental factors, or nurture factors, that are experienced by an individual with the desire to understand why some individuals are more likely to experience stress in a way that contributes to a disease or psychological disorders (Brannon & Feist, 2004). One study by Barrera, Li, and Chassin (1995) used the diathesis-stress model to perform a cross-sectional study on the effects of having an alcoholic parent on two groups of adolescents which were either Hispanic or non-Hispanic Caucasians. The authors had some interesting hypotheses to test such as what effect did being a minority have on stresses assuming that being in a minority group, being in a different culture, or potentially living in a poorer economic group would have in addition to the stress of having an alcoholic parent. The role of family conflict on how stress was absorbed by adolescents was equally important in this study. In their discussion section the authors concluded that Caucasians had more sensitive reactivity to stresses than did their Hispanic counterparts because they were more vulnerable to the life-event of having an alcoholic parent as the Hispanic family culture is more tightly knit in comparison to the Caucasian family and this reduced the Hispanic participants predisposition for stress, when the stress comes from within the family unit.

Of all these models I personally like the biopsychosocial model the best as I feel it incorporates the Psychosocial Theories of Disease and the Diathesis-Stress Model and is the most comprehensive model of the three.

Barrera, M., Li, S. A., & Chassin, L. (1995). Effects of Parental Alcoholism and Life Stress on Hispanic and Non-Hispanic Caucasian Adolescents: A Prospective Study. American Journal of Community Psychology, 23(4), 479+. Retrieved June 7, 2007 from Questia database: http://www.questia.com/PM.qst?a=o&d=5001654936

Brannon, L. & Feist, J. (2004). Health psychology: An introduction to behavior and health (5th Ed.). CA: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.

Engel, G. (1968). A life setting conducive to illness: The giving-upgiven-up complex. Annals of Internal Medicine, 69(2).

Kendall, E. (2003). Predicting vocational adjustment following traumatic brain injury: A test of a psychosocial theory. Journal of Vocational Rehabilitation, 19(1), 31

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Good Psychology - Spirituality, Evolutionary, & Lifespan ...

I have been following with interest Cardinal Gerhard Mller's criticism in April of recent speakers at assemblies of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and its decision to honor St. Joseph Sr. Elizabeth Johnson for her theological writings, some of which have been questioned by the U.S. bishops. According to Mller, prefect of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, "Such an intense focus on new ideas such as conscious evolution has robbed religious of the ability truly to sentire cum Ecclesia [to think with the church, or embrace its teachings]."

Although I am a male religious, I must admit that I too have focused (a lot but not intensely) on "conscious evolution." The more I've investigated its premises, the more I find it helpful, especially as I engage the many questions about faith that science raises. It also has helped me as I seek credibility (and believability) as a Catholic religious and priest called to proclaim our faith in a world rapidly being defined by new insights arising from physics, neuroscience and cosmology.

When I tell other religious and priests that my exploration of these ideas have made me more conscious of how the Trinity and Christ constitute the source and summit of everything in creation, I sometimes find their first reaction is skepticism or fear. However, when they truly examine the idea for themselves, their resistance turns to enthusiastic acceptance. One example might show what I mean. It involves a group of women religious, a U.S. province of an international congregation whose leadership belongs to LCWR.

The whole community had decided to study "the universe story." However, because some of the sisters knew little about evolution while others feared the idea didn't reflect a "sentire cum Ecclesia" Catholicism, the leaders experienced significant "pockets of resistance."

Because I had explored some of these ideas in my recent book Repair My House: Becoming a "Kindom" Catholic, I was invited to the province. The book had outlined three related points:

The workshop's theme was "How Can We Evolve in Consciousness of Our Connectedness in the Cosmic Christ?" I used a model I've developed that shows that the "economy of salvation" involves us evolving in our consciousness to realize that God's plan for the universe is that Trinitarian and cosmic patterns become embodied in the church and world of today.

As I shared my faith and insights using the Scriptures and Franciscan sources, I felt little or no resistance. Instead, I felt much enthusiasm. Our time together, a member of the provincial council told me later, was successful. A sign of this, she noted, was that it was actually the main topic at subsequent meals. Later she wrote to me: "We in leadership have noted that the sisters' attitudes have changed to a much more hopeful and open-mindedness."

One might ask why a priest like me was led to move in this direction of learning about conscious evolution. Briefly, it was an interview in The Wall Street Journal. The special millennial edition for Saturday, Jan. 1, 2000, included conversations with many experts in various fields. While all were fascinating, the one commanding my attention was the interview with Edward O. Wilson.

Wilson won two Pulitzer Prizes for his works on human nature and community while at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. Noting that Wilson had once written that "the predisposition to religious belief is the most powerful and complex in the human mind," The Wall Street Journal interviewer asked him: "How can religion possibly survive what science is doing?" The interviewer's bias, it seemed to me, was clear: Religion is not only irrelevant; it has a short lifespan for any who are truly aware of what science is telling us about our world.

Wilson answered: "The more we understand from science about the way the world really works, all the way from subatomic particles up to the mind and on to the cosmos, the more difficult it is to base spirituality on our ancient mythologies."

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Evolutionary consciousness points to a Trinitarian cosmic ...

Bob Ripley could have carried his secret to his grave.

For close to 35 years, the retired minister, who once headed up Sarnia's Dunlop United Church, had been preaching the good book to congregations in southwestern Ontario.

Thousands of readers have also woken up on Saturday mornings to find his message of faith printed in the spirituality and religion sections of Sun Media newspapers.

But last month, the 62-year-old came out as of all things an unbeliever.

It was an extremely difficult decision because I didn't want to and I don't want to make people sad, he said. I don't want to upset people and I could have taken this little secret to my grave, but I also felt that we need to be honest and authentic that is something we tell our little children....

In a heartfelt column, Ripley shocked readers by proclaiming he had changed his mind, asserting he now believes all religion is man made.

His new perspective has sparked a firestorm from his readers.

I've received notes from people that are angry with me, but the vast majority of responses have been from people saying, a) 'Thank you for taking the risk of candor,' and b) 'Thank you for putting into words what I've been struggling with,' the London-based writer said.

He lays out his journey from preacher to skeptic in his latest book Life Beyond Belief: A Preacher's Deconversion. He will be signing copes of his new book at Sarnia's The Book Keeper on Oct. 25 at 10 a.m.

For a natural storyteller, Ripley admits his story of deconversion doesn't have an 'aha!' moment.

Excerpt from:
Former Sarnia minister tells story of his 'deconversion' in new memoir

Guest post by Amy Edelstein OUnI. Amy is cofounder of Emergence Education, is a gifted spiritual teacher, educator, and author committed to individual transformation and the evolution of our shared values. A Cornell University College Scholar, Amy has a background in Judaic philosophy as well as in Eastern thought. She studied with a number of preeminent Vedantic and Buddhist teachers in the early 1980s then began practicing evolutionary enlightenment with Andrew Cohen in 1986. Passionate about human development and the unfolding of our mystical stirrings within, Amy teaches a variety of transformational programs in the US and abroad. She is author of Love, Marriage & Evolution and loves taking long walks with her husband by their home in historic Philadelphia exploring life, liberty, and the pursuit of true happiness.

Presented at the Big I Conference, March, 2014

Evolutionary Spirituality: empowering our practice with the energy of the universe.

Shaping and reshaping, in wonder I am here! ~Goethe

Over the last decade, evolutionary spirituality has spread its canopy over many of our beliefs, mystical intuitions, and the quality of our relatedness. A marriage of science and spirit, some argue this path is as old as Jakob Boehm or as new as Barbara Marx Hubbard. Some circles credit Plotinus and in others Vedic scholars even lay claim to the origins of evolutionary sensitivities.

While the origin is debatable, and discerning where to place the marker on the stretch of historys timeline raises a number of fascinating and subtle metaphysical debates, for many practitioners now, without even knowing it, the sensibilities of an evolutionary worldview, and the exploration of the ultimately nondual nature between matter and consciousness, form and formlessness, emptiness and that which pervades and therefore contains all, shapes the contours of our spiritual path.

A Quick Peek at the Evolutionary Spirituality Pioneers:

The Grandfathers of the Evolutionary Spirituality Movement: Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo Ghose

The Pioneers of Evolution & Evolutionarily Inspired Mysticism: Alfred North Whitehead, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charles Sanders Pierce, John Dewey, Charles Hartshorne

Contemporary Eco-Evolutionary Christian-Inspired Mystics: Thomas Berry, Brian Swimme, Beatrice Bruteau

Continued here:
Evolutionary Spirituality - Order of Universal Interfaith